It was said by everybody that nothing could be more pathetic than Lord Frogmore’s funeral. When a man dies over seventy he is usually attended to his grave, if he has been a good man, by much respect and reverential seriousness, but not by any acute feelings; but there was something in the aspect of the little boy whom John Parke led by the hand after the old man’s coffin which went to the hearts of the bystanders. Poor little boy! an interloper if ever there was one, a being unnecessary, who never ought to have been. It is needless to say that this was not the popular sentiment. The village folks gaped after the little lord with a partiality and sympathy partly made up of compassion for him, and partly of admiration for his great good fortune. A little thing like that! and already a great lord. People of another class, however, entertained different feelings. The man of business, who was his other guardian, looked at little Mar with a troubled pity that had a little impatience in it. Poor little man! Why on earth had he ever been born? Nobody wanted him. He stood horribly in the way of John Parke and all his sturdy children. It was not at all surprising if John felt it so, and certainly Mrs. John did. There could be no doubt on that subject. They had married on the strength of that inheritance, which nobody ever doubted, and he had been his brother’s heir presumptive all his life. Who wanted this little thing? If even his mother had been fond of him, had taken some pride in him! But she threw him off altogether. The poor little forlorn creature with his little pale face! He was in everybody’s way. But for him John Parke would have come tranquilly into his kingdom, the inheritance which he had expected all his life, which had been his right. There was scarcely anybody, Mr. Blotting thought, who would not be glad if the child were removed to a better world. “If the Lord would take him,” that was what poor people said of their superfluous children. The lawyer could not but think with a feeling not so pious that this would really be the best way. The event would break his aunt’s heart perhaps, but what does it matter if a middle-aged unmarried woman, an old maid, should chance to break her heart? And to everybody else it would be a relief. “They’ll never rare him,” was what the village gossips said. Mr. Blotting had not the slightest doubt that Mrs. John Parke would do the best she possibly could to “rare” Mar, though it would be much against her interest. But what a saving of trouble, what a clearing up of difficulties, if only the Lord would take him. Poor unnecessary child! the old man’s plaything, now nothing but a trouble and hindrance, what to him were all the good things to which he had been born? Nobody wanted him to be born, not even his mother it appeared; and the best thing for him would be to slip away out of life and be heard of no more.
Mar had a very white serious little face, and watched every detail of the funeral service with a strange earnestness. He clutched fast hold of his uncle’s hand as he stood gazing, wondering, not knowing what it was all about. To associate the ominous blackness of that coffin, which was the central object in the dismal scene, with his old kind father, was beyond Mar’s powers. He took a great interest in it, how it was to be got down into the hole, and even stepped forward eagerly, dragging John a step or two to see how it was done, which gave some of the bystanders the idea that the poor little precocious lad was about to throw himself into the grave of his father, and made several take a hasty step towards him to rescue the child. Poor little thing—and not such a bad business either if it could be done—if the Lord would take him. The village people, too, thought it would be a great thing if the Lord would take him. He never would be reared they were sure; and what with his mother, poor lady, who was mad, and his father, who was dead, there was little prospect of any comfort or petting, such as his forlorn orphanhood required, for poor little Mar.
Mary went to the church, though it was considered by Mrs. Hill that it was more decorous that she should not be able to follow the mournful little procession to the grave, and it was not practicable to shut her out afterwards from the assembly of the mourners, before whom the will was read. She came in looking perhaps better than she had ever looked in her life before, in the imposing black and white of her widow’s weeds—that dress which it is so common to decry as hideous, but which is almost always advantageous to its wearer. She was pale and grave, but had that air of soft exhaustion and almost repose which so often follows a grief which is natural, but not impassioned or excessive. The tears came easily to her eyes, her lips occasionally trembled, and her voice broke; but she was quite composed and quiet, guilty of no exaggeration or extravagance of mourning. She came in with her own party surrounding and supporting her—the vicar first of the group, the doctor bringing up the rear with the apologetic air of a man who knows he is not wanted, yet is conscious of a certain right to come. The two factions, so to speak, kept instinctively on different sides of the room, and the vicar and John Parke had a momentary silent struggle for the commanding position in front of the fire which both aimed at. When the one saw the intention of the other he involuntarily hesitated and fell back a step, so that there was first a mutual withdrawal from the coveted place; and then it came simultaneously into the minds of both that to give up this advantage out of mere politeness was unnecessary in the position in which they now stood to each other, so that both began to advance again, as if by a word of command. But if John Parke was more nimble, being younger, the vicar carried more weight, and with a sweep of his large shoulder pushed on, before the other’s attitude was secure. The result was therefore to the advantage of the vicar in this brief preliminary encounter. Mrs. John had placed herself in a comfortable chair near the fire, with her handkerchief and smelling-bottle ready. Mary was more in the open, so to speak, with her mother seated near; Agnes standing by her chair, and the doctor behind. There was little remark as Mr. Blotting read and expounded the will, to which, indeed, no one paid very much attention. They were all tolerably acquainted with its scope and conditions before.
“The chief point to be settled,” said the man of business, “as circumstances may make certain of the late lord’s stipulations impossible, is the future custody and care of poor little Lord Frogmore. I think it may all be managed amicably among us, which would be so much better than any public interference with what the testator wished. I feel sure he would prefer that we should carry out the spirit of his instructions in good intelligence among ourselves.”
“Mr. Blotting,” said Lady Frogmore, “may I be allowed to speak?”
She was the only one to whom the will had been at all new, and she had received it with little gestures of assent and nods of her head.
“Surely, Lady Frogmore, whatever you may wish to say.”
“It is just this,” said Mary. “I agree in all my dear lord says. If there had been—a child. These things,” she said with an old maidenly blush dying her countenance for a moment, “have always, I believe, to be taken into consideration; but there was, you see, no child——”
“Not when the will was written: but a prospect of one, Lady Frogmore.”
“People don’t make settlements upon prospects,” said Mary with a gleam of shrewdness. “Do you think he would have left it like that, if it had come to anything? My dear lord was far more careful of my comfort than that. It is clearly understood, then, that there was no child?”